Puppet made her way hastily down the empty hall. Her bare feet echoing off the cool stone floor and her heart thundering in her chest. Her white cotton shift dress was damp from both sweat and the moisture in the stale air and it clung to her chilled skin.

Her stomach was tied in knots but now that she had started on her mission to escape she knew that she had to see it through.

She was so close!

The Master was distracted by the disappearance of his pet lion and the lion’s escape had finally snapped Puppet from her obedient trance. She had no idea how long she had been in this place. It had felt like lifetimes. Eons.

She came to a corner, the last turn before she came to the door that would lead her out of the dungeons and into the back courtyard. From there she could slip through the gap in the hedges that she had noticed the last time she’d been taken out for a walk.

She pushed her back against the rough stone wall and took a deep breath to calm her heartbeat as she scented the air. She could smell the blood, sweat, urine, waste and fear that was always cloyingly strong here in the dungeons. The sound of creatures begging for their freedom filled her ears but she couldn’t worry about them.

Puppet had to worry about herself for once. She had to get herself free. The Master had been using her and her body for long enough. She would not allow him to do so any longer.

She had been here for so long that she had forgotten most of what her life had been like before. Flashes of her past would come to her now and then. Memories of the life she had once had. She could not remember anything about her pack or her family. But there was one person, one part of her history that she remembered vividly.

Nickolai. Strong, stoic Nickolai. She could remember the way his pale blue eyes had always looked at her with so much love, so much desire. She could remember what his thick brown hair had felt like as she had run her fingers through it. What his lips had felt like against her own. The way his hand had always seemed to find its way to her own.

She remembered Nickolai and she also remembered that Nickolai was dead. A man in her memories, she suspected he was her father but couldn’t really remember now, had told her so. That was when her Master had come. He had taken her away, and she had been too heartbroken and devastated by the loss of her mate to put up any sort of a fight.

Puppet shook her head to clear her thoughts and peeked around the corner. Empty. The final one hundred feet to the outside was clear.

Her thin cotton dress whipped around her shins as she ran to the exit and then took a deep breath before grabbing the rusted iron handle and opening the heavy wooden door, just a crack, with shaking hands.

The rusty hinges squeaked and Puppet winced, though she had knocked out the guard with her iron feed bowl, she worried that someone else may hear the sound and call up an alarm.

She let out a light sigh of relief when everything remained calm and then she poked her head through the door crack and looked around the courtyard. It was dark, and while there was a tower guard who kept an eye on the courtyard, she knew that he was only a half demon and therefore his eyesight was no better in the night than a mortals. It was his sense of hearing that made him dangerous but Puppet knew how to move silently. She had mastered at least that much while she had been her Masters prisoner and mistress.

If she stuck to the shadows then she could make it.

Where would she go? She didn’t know. She would worry about that later. Her first priority was simply getting away from here. Away from her master. Away from his bed and his cruelty. She slipped out the door, closing it silently behind her and then slipped through the shadows.

Her heart was thundering. Her stomach was tied in knots. A cold sweat covered her brow and her palms. Her mind kept playing tricks on her, causing her to hear things that weren’t there and her skin was crawling as if eyes were watching her from every direction. From behind every shadow, bush and tree.

But there was no one and Puppet made it to the gap in the hedges. She couldn’t believe how easy this has been. How foolishly she had stayed all this time when escape was so simple. But then again it wouldn’t have been so simple if her Master hadn’t been so distracted. Puppet slipped through the hedges and then she ran.

She ran as if her very life depended on it, and it probably did. She didn’t think about where she was going, she didn’t wonder at why her legs seemed determined to take her in a certain direction, she just ran and prayed she could make it a good distance before her Master realized she was missing.

***

“Farrah, you wanna go for a walk with me?” Trig asked his reflection in the mirror on the backside of the barn. He frowned and then puffed out his chest and stood as straight as he could manage. “Farrah, I wish for you to accompany me on a walk.”

Trig frowned again and his shoulders slumped. No matter what he did he just couldn’t seem to make himself as impressive as Nickolai. Sure he was taller than Nickolai by a good three inches but the other man just had a tough as nails exterior that Trig lacked.

No, he more than lacked it. It was completely non existent in the entire scope of his existence. Now normally Trig was very fond of himself and didn’t compare himself to anyone else so why was he suddenly feeling inferior to Nickolai?

Because Farrah seemed to be glued to Nickolai’s side. Three days! Three days she had been here and in those three days she and Trig had only shared a few words in passing. Trig, who had never been real suave with the ladies, was a complete and total bumbling idiot around the beautiful lion, and she had eyes only for Nickolai.

Okay so truthfully she was glued to Nickolai because he had been training Dawn and Farrah had seemed to be very interested in the fighting techniques he was using but still…. Farrah was his! She was supposed to be glued to his hip!

Trig shook his head and then put on his best stoic face. It was hard since his lips seemed to be prone to curving into a smile all the time for no reason. He looked in the dirt smeared mirror and forced his eyes to become dull just like Nickolai always seemed to be.

“Farrah, it would satisfy me greatly if you will please go for a walk with me today.” He was feeling very proud of his Nickolaiesque performance when he heard a throat clear behind him. He spun around and felt himself flame red with embarrassment when he saw Farrah standing there staring at him as if he were crazy.

“Um, I would be more than happy to go for a walk with you but that’s not me. That’s a barn.” Trig coughed to cover up his embarrassment and nodded quickly.

“Yeah, I uh.. I know that.” he replied. “I was practicing…”

“Practicing for what?” she asked as she tilted her head.

“For um.. Asking you to walk with me.” Farrah rubbed at her arm and shook her head.

“That is…. Strange.” she finally replied and Trig nodded.

“Yep.” he replied, silently wishing that a giant black hole would open up beneath him and swallow him whole.

“Are we walking now?” Farrah asked quizzically and Trig nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re walking now.” he replied quickly.

***

Grange watched Trig and Farrah walk off into the woods and frowned. Dawn was around back washing clothes and so Grange walked to the edge of the forest where Nickolai was standing and simply staring off into the distance.

“Nice day.” Grange stated as he came to stand beside the wolf and looked up at the cloudless blue sky. Nickolai grunted and gave a small nod in response.

Grange worried about the other man. He had been more distant than usual for the last day or two. He spent more time simply staring or pacing with agitation. It almost seemed as if he was jumping back and forth between dazed and restless.

“You seem to be thinking hard.” Grange stated, unsure of how to work around to asking what was wrong with Nickolai. Grange wasn’t a man who knew much of anything about conversations or feelings so a conversation about feelings was completely unexplored territory.

Nickolai was silent for so long that Grange was about to take the hint and walk away when finally the sad wolf whispered;

“It has been seventy-six years today since my Brie was taken from me.”

Grange felt his own heart twist. A member of his pack was hurting and Grange understood his pain. Albeit he had only thought his mate lost for mere hours not three quarters of a century but the heartache was the same.

“I am sorry.” Grange replied quietly. “I did not know.”

“I cannot explain it, Grange.” Nickolai stated with confusion. “I had made peace with her death. I had accepted it. Yet the last few days I have suddenly started thinking of her more. I have this urge in my soul to get to her. Which makes no sense when she is dead…”

Grange wished there was something he could say but he knew there wasn’t and he didn’t think Nickolai really wanted him to comment. The man was just venting. Simply thinking out loud.

“Dawn seems to be coming along well with her lessons.” he finally said, filling the silence that had overcome them both. Nickolai nodded and some of the sadness disappeared from his face.

“Yes she is a natural. Today she nearly blacked my eye.” he chuckled. “Of course afterward she apologized profusely and nearly cried before saying she would bake me a carrot cake to make up for it.”

“She’s a lover not a fighter.” Grange stated with amusement and Nickolai nodded.

“Yes she is. In many ways she reminds me of my Brie. I regret not teaching her to protect herself. I trusted that I and those of the pack would always do the protecting for her.”

“We are wolves, Nickolai, it is in our nature to be protective. You could not have known what would happen.”

“I should have known.” Nickolai argued and Grange said nothing. Finally Nickolai sighed and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I see Trig finally got around to getting Farrah alone.”

“Do you really believe that she is his mate?” Grange asked and Nickolai shrugged.

“Trig certainly seems to think so. He would know more so than I.”

“But she’s a werelion. Is that even possible?”

“I have heard of matches such as that before.” Nickolai assured him. “Though Farrah is unlike anyone I have ever met. Stern like a soldier one moment and more than a little odd in the next.”

“Yes she is certainly unique.” Nickolai was about to reply when suddenly the sound of hoof beats reached both of their ears and they stiffened and turned to look at the road.

Grange relaxed slightly when he saw that it was sheriff Bishop. He and Nickolai walked out to the road and met the lawman as he came to stop and dismounted his horse.

“What brings you all the way out here, sheriff?” Grange asked good naturedly. It was a good hours ride at a pretty fast clip from town to here and not many people made the trip unless they needed to.

“Well, Grange, as much as I’d like to say it was just a friendly visit, it’s not. I’m looking for a woman actually and was wondering if you’ve seen her.” Grange glanced over at Nickolai but the man’s face was unreadable. Grange had never met a person who could hide emotions as well as he himself did but he had found that person in Nickolai.

“Has this woman does something wrong?” Grange asked and sheriff Bishop frowned.

“I really probably shouldn’t talk to you about that….” he started and Grange smiled, though he knew the smile wouldn’t reach his eyes.

“Come on now, sheriff. If that woman comes around I have a right to know if my wife is in danger.”

“There were some men in town that said she is dangerous.” Grange raised a brow but inside he groaned. Looked like the miners were still after the ‘monster’ that had attacked them.

“Trig has a woman with him. She’s a tall woman, real pretty with dark hair. She showed up a couple of days ago.” Grange replied and he felt Nickolai’s eyes land on him, even as he saw Dawn come around the cabin.

“That sounds like the woman I’m looking for.” the sheriff stated. “Where is she? I’d like to ask her some questions.”

“She’s gone with Trig. But I might have a few things to say to those men that are looking for her. Where are they?”

“They left town when I told them I didn’t think she was here. Something about them seemed off and their story seemed a little far fetched.”

“What was their story?” Grange asked, happy that sheriff Bishop was a fair man who didn’t believe in what he considered ‘fairy tale’ creatures.

“They claim she transformed into a giant cat and attacked them before running away.” sheriff Bishop replied. “Given the attacks in recent weeks I have to at least ask questions, no matter how ridiculous I think it is.” Grange and Nickolai shared a look of mock disbelief and Grange chuckled as he turned back to the sheriff.

“That’s a lot different from the story we heard. Those men are just licking their wounds and their damaged pride after she handed them their asses.”

“That’s what I figured.” sheriff Bishop replied with a nod. “But I’d still like to talk to her.”

“I’ll tell you what, sheriff, I’ll make sure Farrah comes into town tomorrow and talks to you. Will that work?”

“I guess it will have to, won’t it?” Grange nodded with a grin and the sheriff sighed. “I’ll be heading back in to town then, Grange. Sorry to bother you.”

“No bother, sheriff.” Grange assured him. The sheriff mounted his horse, tipped his hat to Dawn, who was walking to them and then rode off back toward town.

“What was that about?” Dawn asked as she approached them. Grange grabbed her and pulled her into his arms.

“Just the visit we’ve been expecting.” he replied. “Apparently the miners found our town and asked the sheriff about Farrah. Thankfully he sent them on their way but he does want to speak to Farrah tomorrow.”

“Do you think she’s ready for that?” Dawn asked skeptically. They hadn’t yet taken her into town. She was odd and unpredictable and they were afraid of how she would act if for some reason she felt threatened.

“She has to be.” Grange replied with a shrug, though he wasn’t sure himself.

Silence followed and then the silence was broken by a pain filled yelp in the distance.

“That sounded like Trig!” Dawn exclaimed.

“That was Trig.” Grange growled. “Get in the cabin and stay in the cabin.” he warned her as he scented the air. He could smell them. The miners. The stench of a group of mortal men and their anger filling the breeze.

“But I…” Dawn started and Grange growled loudly and pointed at the house. Dawn glared at him but then quickly ran to the cabin and slammed the door closed behind her. Grange and Nickolai quickly pulled off their clothing to save them from being destroyed and they were running into the woods even as they shifted.